James Grippando - When Darkness Falls

Alicia said, “You mean it’s a lot for Falcon to deal with.”

“No, I meant Theo,” said Jack. “I know how my friend thinks. He won’t come out of that hotel room unless they all come out together. Now it turns out that he’s stuck in there with two teenage girls and Walt the Weather Wizard. It’s all on Theo’s shoulders.”

No one disagreed.

“At least there’s no bomb,” said Alicia.

Paulo said, “It’s interesting, though, the way he talks about his generator. You can hear it in his voice. It’s as if he thinks a generator is more scary than explosives.”

“I heard it, too,” said Jack. “But it’s hard to imagine how that could be.”

“Depends on your imagination, I suppose,” said Alicia.

“What do you mean?” said Jack.

She hesitated and looked away. “Just, you know, this Falcon has already shown himself to be highly delusional. There’s no telling what he thinks his little generator can do. Maybe he’s convinced himself that it has the power to change the magnetic charge of the earth’s poles or the gravitational pull of the moon.”

“You sure that’s what you meant?”

“Yeah. What else would I mean?”

Several possible answers to that question tumbled through Jack’s mind. The same intuition that had raised his antennae a few hours earlier was gnawing at him again. He could have sworn she was backpedaling. “Tell me something, Alicia. What scares you the most about Falcon?”

She gave him a curious expression. “That he’ll kill the hostages, of course.”

“Let me ask a different question. What does your father fear most about him?”

“The same thing, I’m sure.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because I know my father.”

“Do you?”

“Yes,” she said, somewhat annoyed.

“Do you know what your father’s bodyguard was doing along the river, down by Falcon’s car, the other night?”

“I don’t know anything about that.”

“How about you, sergeant?”

Jack had hoped to catch Paulo off guard and get some kind of reading from his expression. Paulo was too savvy for that. “Funny thing about people with something on their chest. If they’re afraid to get it off, they usually end up with a chip on their shoulder.”

“Meaning what?”

“Spare us the cross-examination mode, counselor. If you’ve got something to say, just say it.”

“All right,” said Jack. “I’m all for the direct approach, so long as it’s a two-way street. Does somebody want to tell me what the mayor’s bodyguard was doing down there, or are you going to keep pretending that you didn’t know anything about it?”

“I’m sure he had a good reason,” said Alicia.

“I’d sure like to hear it. Because a woman was killed that night.”

“She was beaten to death with a lead pipe that has Falcon’s fingerprints all over it,” she said.

“Alicia,” said Paulo. It was clearly an admonishment, as she was sharing confidential details about the investigation with a guy who was (or at least had been) Falcon’s lawyer.

“I don’t care,” she said. “I see where you’re headed with this, Swyteck, and it’s nothing but a distraction. You think something smells fishy. Maybe you even think my father sent his bodyguard down to the river to make sure Falcon doesn’t come after me again.”

“Maybe I do,” said Jack.

“Alicia,” said Paulo.

“No, I want to clear this up right now. It’s ridiculous. Even if my father were the type of man to do such a thing-which he’s not-your insinuation just doesn’t make any sense. If Falcon himself had ended up dead, maybe you would at least have some semblance of logic on your side. But why in the world would my father’s bodyguard kill a defenseless woman who has been homeless for so long that not even the medical examiner can identify her body?”

She had a point, but at this stage of the discussion, Jack wasn’t ready to concede anything. “I’m working on that.”

“Your work would be better focused on helping Vince solve this crisis.”

“That I agree with,” said Paulo. A moment later, his phone rang. It was the outside line, not their negotiation line. Paulo answered, then covered the mouthpiece and spoke to Jack. “It’s Darden, the Miami officer who went with you to the Greater Bahamian Bank and Trust Company. Can you excuse me for a minute please?”

Jack didn’t move. “Two-way street, remember?”

Paulo was about to object, then seemed to think better of it. Perhaps he saw an opportunity to regain Jack’s trust by not making him leave, but he didn’t go so far as to put Darden on speaker. It turned out to be a short conversation, with Paulo doing a lot of listening and very little talking. He hung up after just a couple of minutes.

“Did something turn up at the Bahamian bank?” said Jack.

“Quite the opposite, actually. Darden just gave me a little update on Mr. Riley, the manager who let you into the bank this morning.”

“What about him?”

“He’s gone missing.”

It took Jack a moment to process that one. “‘Missing’ as in he ran away? Or ‘missing’ as in foul play?”

“Don’t know yet. But according to the Bahamian police, every computer record relating to Falcon’s safe deposit box has been destroyed. Every handwritten record, including the access log book, is gone also.”

“Sounds like you need to find Mr. Riley.”

“Yeah,” said Paulo. “I’d say that sounds about right.”

T heo kept waiting for the buzz.

Had the food from the wagon been laced with any kind of sleeping agent, some noticeable effect should have kicked in by now. Theo felt nothing. It was like the time Jack had decided to walk on the wild side and bake pot brownies, only to discover that he’d paid his Colombian yardman a hundred bucks for a bag of oregano. Actually, it was Theo who had made the discovery. Jack thought he was stoned. Poor Jack.

How will that guy ever survive without me?

“I want out of here,” said the weatherman. He spoke softly, to no one in particular. It wasn’t even clear that he’d intended to utter his thoughts aloud.

“What did you say?” said Falcon, challenging him.

“I didn’t say anything. It was him,” the weatherman said, pointing with a nod toward Theo.

In another setting, with hands untied, Theo would have snapped the little twerp in half. For his own sake and that of the girls, he kept his cool. “I want a beer,” said Theo. “That’s all I said.”

“Ain’t got no beer.”

“Try room ser vice.”

“Try shutting your damn mouth.”

“Can you at least give the men a turn in the bathroom?” said the weatherman.

Falcon nodded. “Go ahead.”

“Aren’t you going to untie us?” said Theo.

“No. Hop on over there and let Natalia the jinitera hold it for you.”

They did exactly that, and when they finished, a tense silence gripped the room, like the calm before the storm. Falcon had finally removed his coat, but he showed no sign of complying with Jack’s demand that he turn it over to the police for examination. It was bundled up in the corner next to the little generator. Theo had been eyeing the contraption for several minutes. The thing looked to be about a hundred years old, except that portable generators probably didn’t exist that long ago. Maybe twenty-five or thirty was more like it. The black metal box was scratched and dirty, with a nasty dent in one corner, as if it had been dropped off a building. One of the knobs or dials was missing, and all that remained was a screw protruding from a round hole in the box. There were two meters-amps and volts, Theo presumed-and the glass casing over one of them was shattered into a spiderweb of cracks. At one time, this might have been a working generator, and perhaps it had even been overworked. Theo had to wonder if it was still operational.